One of the most frustrating aspects of the black Confederate debate is the tendency on the part of a select few to warp the definition of a soldier to a point where it becomes meaningless. These individuals may have made room for their preferred picture of the Confederate army, but it fails to reflect anything [...]
black Confederates
It’s one of those quotes that sticks out like a sore thumb on many black Confederate websites: “When you eliminate the black Confederate soldier, you’ve eliminated the history of the South.” The only problem is that if you search for this quote Online you run into any number of problems not the least of which [...]
I trust that after this post no one will accuse me of dismissing any and all evidence for the existence of black Confederate soldiers. Better yet, I give you at least one black Confederate general. The interesting question is whether the Sons of Confederate Veterans and others will accept him as one of their own. [...]
Description: “Robert E. Lee and a southern planter pull apart a slave into two pieces. Lee states, “I must have the slave or cave in.” The southern planter states, “Anyhow you can’t have MY Nigger.” His armies were so depleted in 1864, that General Lee advocated the conscription of blacks into military service. This was [...]
Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email from one of Professor Edward C. Smith’s current students. Professor Smith teaches at American University and on occasion has been a vocal advocate of the black Confederate narrative. He was featured not too long ago in a post that included an excerpt of a speech he [...]
I haven’t done a Civil War Roundtable talk in some time, but I almost always enjoy the experience, especially the Q&A with folks who share my passion for this history. Today I accepted an invitation from the North Worcester County Civil War Roundtable to give a talk on black Confederates. The talk is scheduled for [...]
One of the things that I appreciate about Ervin Jordan’s research into this subject is his desire to more fully account for the myriad ways in which the war affected the lives of free and enslaved Southern blacks. I’ve maintained from the beginning that what is desperately needed in this discussion is a move beyond [...]
Here is another very touching and informative episode of “Who Do You Think You Are” featuring Lionel Ritchie. Ritchie searches for his great grandfather, J.L. Brown, and discovers that he applied for a pension based on his presence as a servant to Morgan W. Brown, who served in the Confederate army. Brown, it turns out, [...]
